Tuesday, Mar 11, 2014

Inspiring Spring Garland Tutorial

Hi everyone,

It's Christy with my first Cutcardstock design team project. So grateful for this opportunity and happy to be included in this term! The theme for this project is Spring, and Chicago (my city) has battled consistent snow, ice and frigid temps. I wanted to make something that I could hang in the studio to remind me that better (warmer) days are coming! The Daylight Savings switch this past weekend helps.

1. Trim Stock. I trimmed Cryogen White 89# Curious Metallic squares at 3" x 3". These can obviously be larger or smaller, but I thought this was a nice size. I measured the lines and used an Exacto blade to trim. Just my preference, you can use a guillotine or sliding trimmer for these. After I got all six trimmed, I started working on the squares that these would be mounted to. The size for the "backer" cards should be 3.25" x 3.25". This gives you a nice, 1/8" inch border on all sides.

2. Mounting squares and adding embellishments. This is the fun part. You can really go crazy here. I kept it simple and used a circle punch, along with a hole puncher (I used a couple of decorative stamps on others as well, you will notice it on the final piece). All of the circles were affixed with the glue dots. I kind of decided as I was going along how they should be combined. Really no way to go wrong here. Using some Spring "greens" I chose Curious Metallic Lime cover stock 111# and Botanic 111#. I also later decided to change out some of the white squares to lime as I thought the varying colors looked more interesting together.

Clockwise: 1.) Grab the glue dots to start mounting the backer cards to your main square 2.) Affix a glue dot to the corner of your square and then carefully place dots from hole punch on top 3.) Have fun. I made baby florals... 4.) Also just used smaller chunks of the glue dot to form a random dot pattern.

3. Creating the garland. Now its time to finish up the decorating and create the garland! You should have six squares, ready for lettering**. Once that's done you can add glue dots to the ribbon. I like adding it to the ribbon because you have more control when positioning the squares. Just keep going until you are done...

Clockwise: 1.) Once you are done mounting and crafting each square to your liking, you are ready to write 2.) I used a Zig dual tip calligraphy marker to write the letters: S P R I N G onto the squares 3.) After that, I cut a strip of ivory organza sheer ribbon and placed the dots onto the ribbon. 4.) You then carefully place the squares equidistant from one another for hanging.

**Note: If you are not savvy with a calligraphy marker, a shortcut is to print letters out on a printer (choose an italic font) and rub the back of the printout with a pencil. You can then lie the stock on top of your square (pencil resin side down) and trace the outline of the letter, pressing firmly. You will then successfully transfer a light rendering of the letter to the card and then you can just fill it in with the fine tip side of the pen. 4. All done. The garland is ready to hang. I love vertical garlands, but you can also do this horizontally. I have this hanging in my studio now. Spring weather can't come quickly enough! Take care and see you guys next time!